⭕️ Oxford Union vows to host Piker and Uygur remotely as backlash grows over UK ban
🔸The Oxford Union has refused to cancel its June 6 event with Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur despite the UK Home Office revoking both of their travel authorizations on the grounds that their presence would not be "conducive to the public good."
“This eleventh-hour call signals much more than democratic decline — it is a direct threat to free expression,” Oxford Union President Arwa Elrayess said. “We have never turned a speaker away because of their political beliefs, nor have we sought a permission slip from the state. We will not start now. Free speech does not require a visa.”
The fallout from the ban continued to grow:
🔸 Journalist and Novara Media editor Ash Sarkar withdrew from SXSW London entirely, writing: “If I were in their shoes, I would hope that any organisation which invited me to speak, and had their programming interfered with by the Home Office, would have had the minimal expected integrity to offer some defence of lawful free expression and condemn government overreach.” Piker himself responded that SXSW “totally didn’t defend me or Cenk at all”
🔸 The Labour Muslim Network called the ban “alarming” and demanded a clear government explanation, stating that “support for Palestinian rights, criticism of the actions of the Israeli government, and advocacy for international law and human rights must never be grounds for exclusion from public debate in the United Kingdom”
The decision to prevent Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker from speaking in the UK is alarming and demands a clear explanation from the Government.
Read our full statement here ⬇️